Migrating a Discoverer System to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition

Milena Gerova President Bulgarian Oracle User Group

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Who am I
Project Manager in TechnoLogica Ltd (http://www.technologica.com )
Oracle Partner since 1994 Oracle Approved Education Provider since 1995 Oracle Certified Advantage Partner since 2006

Oracle BI&DW Architecture & Development Specialist Certified Oracle Trainer as from 2001 14 years experience with Oracle: Design, Development, Implementation

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Agenda
Oracle BI products overview and comparison Options for Discoverer customers Manual migration approaches
EUL objects Workbooks Operational environment Workbook fine-tuning Take advantage of all the new features

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The Evolving Role of BI

From:
Fewer users Historical data Fragmented view Reporting results Analytic tools Separate BI, CRM, ERP

To:
Pervasive use Real-time, predictive data Unified, enterprise view Insight-driven Actions, Process Optimization Prebuilt analytic solutions Integrated Performance Management System
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Oracles BI Product Strategy

Analytic and Corporate Performance Applications
Enterprise Wide Industry Specific

Oracle BI Applications

Business Intelligence Tools

Unified, enterprise view

Oracle BI Suite

Pervasive information delivery Real-time, predictive data from heterogeneous data sources Interactive visualization

Oracle Data Warehousing

Data Warehousing
OLAP and Data Mining options in the database ETL tools
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Oracle BI Suite EE
Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) Oracle + Siebel Powerful BI Server technology BI presentation Tools OBIEE Plus = OBIEE + Hyperion products

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What About Oracle Discoverer?

Previous Oracle BI Platform Now part of Oracle BI Suite Standard Edition (OBISE)
Discoverer Plus Discoverer Plus Browser Discoverer Viewer Discoverer Viewer Browser Portlet Provider Portlet Provider Browser BI Beans BI Beans Browser

Oracle AS Oracle AS Discoverer Services Discoverer OLAP Discoverer OLAP Browser Excel OLAP Excel OLAP Add in Add in MOLAP ROLAP

Discoverer Administrator Discoverer Administrator

EUL / BI Metadata
Discoverer Desktop Discoverer Desktop

OLTP

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Product Components Mapping

Discoverer
Administration Ad-hoc analysis Publishing Scheduling, alerts, distribution Reporting Office integration Mobile analytics Financial Analysis and CPM Discoverer Administrator Discoverer Plus Discoverer Portlet Provider Discoverer Scheduler Oracle Reports Builder Excel OLAP Add-In

OBIEE Plus
BI EE Administration Tool BIEE Answers BIEE Interactive Dashboards Oracle BI Delivers Oracle BI Publisher Oracle BI Office Plug-In Oracle Disconnected Analytics Oracle Briefing Books Hyperion set of products

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What is More in OBIEE? BI Server Technology

Unified BI metadata for all end-user tools
Moving from Report-centric to Model-centric approach Common Enterprise Information Model

Intelligence across multiple sources

Real-time and historical data Oracle and non Oracle data sources

Performance
Caching, Summary management, SQL tuning Load balancing across many presentation servers
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What is More in OBIEE? BI Presentation Tools

Full ad hoc analysis over the Web Rich interactive dashboards with guided analytics Proactive detection, alerts and distribution Full MS Office integration Disconnected analytics for mobile users Multilanguage support
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What is More in OBIEE? OBIEE is part of Oracle Fusion Middleware

SOA and Web Services connectivity BPEL Process Manager integration Oracle Internet Directory and Single Sign-On Support

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What is Less in OBIEE?

No native access to OLAP cubes
Access through materialized views

User interface
No ability to drill up Missing wizards for using analytical and time-series functions Missing wizards for creating reports in Answers

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To Migrate or Not To Migrate ?

Stay on Discoverer (BI Standard Edition) Use Discoverer with BI Enterprise Edition Migrate Discoverer to BI Enterprise Edition

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To Migrate or Not To Migrate ? Option 1: Stay on Discoverer (BI Standard Edition)

Continued new releases and functionality Statement of Direction March 2008 Covered by Oracles Lifetime Support Dedicated development team No forced migration

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To Migrate or Not To Migrate ? Option 2: Use Discoverer with BI Enterprise Edition

Use a Discoverer analysis as a source in BI Publisher (from Discoverer 10.1.2.3) Publish Discoverer analysis in BIEE Interactive Dashboards (from Discoverer 11g) Use BI EE Delivers for alerting & distribution of Discoverer analysis (from Discoverer 11g)

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To Migrate or Not To Migrate ? Option 3: Migrate Discoverer to BI Enterprise Edition

Migration utility planned for Discoverer 11g
EUL metadata to OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model Discoverer Workbooks to Answers Requests Post-migration work Answers requests and Dashboards fine-tuning Take advantage of all the new features

Now: Manually recreate in OBIEE

Helps you understand how it all works Useful for simple proof-of-concepts, demo systems
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Migration Considerations
STOP if
your business case have not been confirmed your business sponsors and users have not adequately engaged your resources have not been appropriate aligned you dont have a detailed, step-by-step implementation plan

Move when ready Apply formal SDLC methodology

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Migration Approach
4. Favour the new features Discoverer Server
Discoverer Workbooks

OBIEE
Presentation Services Presentation Catalog Answers OBI Server

3. Users & Roles migration 2. Workbook Conversion

Discoverer EUL

OBI Repository

1. Convert EUL to Repository Model

DW / DM

Common Enterprise Information Model

Presentation Model Logical Model Physical Model

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Migration Approach
1st step: Convert EUL to OBIEE Information Model 2nd step: Workbook conversion 3rd step: Security (users & roles) 4th step: Favour the new features

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Observe Discoverer EUL

Investigate previous DW project documentation Access current use of Discoverer and review:
Range of workbooks Defined objects in End User Layer Defined users and privileges

Arrange user interviews

Which reports do you frequently use? What is not working with the current implementation? Discuss requirements for new features (alerting, publishing, dashboards)

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EUL into OBIEE Repository: 1 into 3

End User Layer (EUL)
Discoverer metadata repository Schema in a database

BI Enterprise Edition RPD file

Metadata repository file in the file system

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OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model

How business users want to see their data

What is the business meaning of the data

Where are that data The organizations data

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OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model Physical layer

Physical Layer Definition of source tables No data is moved Multiple sources Optimized SQL generation Regardless of Schema

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OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model Business Logical Layer

Business Model Layer Integrated view of the organizations data One logical source per all relevant enterprise data Historical + real-time data, whenever they reside Presented like Star schema (Facts, Dimensions, Drill Paths) Consistency of business metrics and calculations

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OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model Presentation Layer

Presentation Layer Role-based, in context, personalized presentation Oracle Answers, Oracle BI Publisher, 3th party tools

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OBIEE Common Enterprise Information Model Model-centric approach

Design goal for the BI Server metadata layer is to create:
Integrated view of the organizations data One logical source per all relevant enterprise data Historical + real-time data, whenever they reside Presented like Star schema (Facts, Dimensions, Drill Paths) Integrated using BI server Pre-integrated (data mart, data warehouse) Consistency of business metrics and calculations

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Discoverer Objects Map objects with similar metadata concepts
Business Areas Folders Joins Hierarchies Item classes Calculated items Optional and mandatory conditions Complex folders Custom folders Summaries
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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Business Area Business Areas Presentation Catalog Answers Subject Area

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Folders

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Custom Folders Physical Layer: New physical table defined as of type Select Oracle Answers: Direct Database Request Oracle Database: View or Materialized view

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Joins OBIEE join types
Foreign key: Fact.DATE_ID = D_DATE.ID Complex: REP_DATE between DATE_FROM and DATE_TO

Foreign keys from the database will be imported automatically into the Physical Layer Logical Layer
Foreign key joins are allowed but not recommended Complex joins allows BI server to determine best join path Create physical joins before importing into Logical Layer

New joins can be defined using Joins Manager or Physical Diagram window or Logical Table Diagram
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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Joins

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Complex Folders Logical table with more than one table mapped Mapping
BI server creates one physical query Use when you need columns from other joined tables Use when creating star schema from snowflake physical model

Logical table with more than one source Fragmentation

BI Server creates two or more physical queries Executes one of the queries Use when gathering data from different levels Use when gathering data from different systems (OLTP, DW)
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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Dimensions and Hierarchies Define dimensions and hierarchies in Logical Layer to create drill paths Hierarchy levels should have at least one key Define Preferred Drill Paths to skip a level Collapse snowflake data models from Discoverer into a star schema in OBIEE Logical Layer
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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Time Dimensions Explicitly specify time dimensions

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Time Dimensions Requires at least one Chronological Key (DAY etc) Unique value for each hierarchy level

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Discoverer Multiple Join Paths No equivalent in BIEE Need to fit model into the star schema for logical business layer Alias folders used to satisfy multiple join paths

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Calculations OBIEE uses its own SQL dialect
Consistent calculation ability across DB platforms Function Shipping Difficult for migration

Calculations in the Business Logical Layer

Creates logical columns Use Evaluate to map to Oracle embedded functions

Calculations in Answers
Not recommended for common business metrics Use pass-thru native SQL to take advantage of Oracle native analytical capabilities
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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Calculations Perform calculations as close to the source data as possible Use dedicated OLAP technology if available Use BI Server to provide features not found in sources

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Discoverer Item classes, Filters, Summaries No Item Class equivalent in BI EE
LOVs are generated at run time automatically

Filters
Mandatory: on Logical data source layer Optional: as filters in Answers

Summaries
Materialized views in BI Server Materialized view in the database OLAP cube in the database

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EUL into OBIEE Repository

Presentation Layer Hints One Logical Table can be presented in more than one Presentation Catalogs Answers Request uses tables in current Subject Area (different from Discoverer) Group related items in Presentation Folders Use Rename Wizard to clean up table and column names
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Migration Approach
1st step: Convert EUL to OBIEE Information Model 2nd step: Workbook conversion 3th step: Security (users & roles) 4th step: Favour the new features

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Discoverer Objects Migration

Worksheets in a workbook Discoverer Worksheets Answers Requests

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Discoverer Objects Migration

Creating a request in BI Answers Choose Subject Area Choose Presentation Columns Use tabs to fine-tune the request Preview the results Save the request Share request trough Manage Catalog window

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Discoverer Objects Migration

Workbooks No direct equivalent to workbook in BI EE Dashboards or tab pages or sections can be used to group functionally related requests A dashboard can be related to > 1 data source Workbook parameters <-> Dashboard prompts Worksheet parameters <-> Answers request prompts

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Discoverer Objects Migration

Publishing Create Dashboards Create Tab Pages Create Sections within a Tab Page Add dashboard prompts Add Requests Save/preview the dashboard

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Migration Approach
1st step: Convert EUL to OBIEE Information Model 2nd step: Workbook conversion 3th step: Security (users & roles) 4th step: Favour the new features

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Operational environment
Security User accounts definition
Explicitly in BI Server via Security Manager In external source

Roles -> Groups Authentication

LDAP Authentication External Table Authentication Database Authentication

Row Level Security

Oracle VPD or on a Logical Table level
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Migration Approach
1st step: Convert EUL to OBIEE Information Model 2nd step: Workbook conversion 3th step: Security (users & roles) 4th step: Favour the new features

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Enjoy the New Features

Take advantage of new Answers and Dashboard features Add alerts, guided analytics in Oracle BI Delivers Print and distribute reports using BI Publisher Disconnected and mobile mode Write back option for budget and planning

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Oracle Answers New Features

Extra capabilities for conditionally format results:
Icons in tables Conditional chart formatting

Extra visualization options in BI EE

Gauges, Narrative, Ticker

Drag and drop layout editing

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Interactive Dashboards New Features

Local time display New Content Types
Link or Image Embedded content Guided Navigation Links Briefing book navigation BI Publisher Report

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Summary
Migrating Discoverer to Oracle BI Enterprise Edition is a relatively straightforward task
Move when ready Do now manually, or wait for migration utility Migrate similar metadata concepts: 1 into 3 does work !

Benefits of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition

Access multiple different data sources Interactive Dashboards Pure thin client interface Alerting, scheduling and distribution Hot Pluggable Highly scalable architecture
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Thank You

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